· WINEMAKER’S NOTES ·
After twenty years of experience working the vineyards and vinifying each lot separately that goes into making his celebrated ARTADI Pagos Viejos, famed winemaker and Artadi owner, Juan Carlos López de Lacalle has selected three of his best pagos, or individual vineyard blocks, to create the prestigious ARTADI Valdeginés, ARTADI El Carretil and ARTADI La Poza de Ballesteros single-vineyard wines. Made from 35-65 year-old vines located in Rioja Alavesa at an average altitude of 1,700 feet, these hand-crafted wines are made in extremely small quantities for the rare wine collector and distinguished wine consumer alike. A wine that is both incredibly refined and well-structured, Valdeginés enters the mouth smoothly and is supported by a strong backbone of ripe and chewy tannins. Ending with a long, velvety finish, this extraordinary single-vineyard wine clearly demonstrates the quality potential of a stellar Rioja. Meant to drink now or age up to 50-100 years, only 630 6-bottle cases were produced.

Varietal: 100% Tempranillo

· AN EXCEPTIONAL VINEYARD·
Grown in the nutrient-poor, calcareous clay sub-soils that surround the ancient walled village of Laguardia, the 17.3 acre Valdeginés vineyard is located at an altitude of 1,728 feet above sea-level, in one of the highest grape-growing regions of the Iberian peninsula. A densely-spaced, east-facing vineyard, Valdeginés consists of two micro-terroirs where vines lie either in the shallow soil of soft sandstone slopes or along the ancient rock terraces that are made up of cooler, deeper soils. As all of the Artadi vineyards are dry-farmed and maintained naturally, chemical fertilizers and pesticides are never used in this inimitable vineyard. A blend of both hillside and terraced fruit, Valdeginés is consistently both incredibly complex and pleasing on the palate vintage-to-vintage.

· HISTORY·
Owner Juan Carlos López de Lacalle has been surrounded by old vines and great wines since early childhood when he used to accompany his grandfather during harvest time in Rioja. Dedication to detail and hard work is something he learned at an early age, and these are the governing principles for his three world-class wineries in Rioja (Artadi), Navarra (Artazu) and Alicante (El Sequé). These three distinctive properties focus on three individual grape varietals, and have each been leaders in quality for over a decade.